Ban on Louisiana video game law made permanent

The states continue their losing streak when it comes to regulating the sale …

A federal judge has ruled that a controversial law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors in Louisiana is unconstitutional.

Coauthored by video game critic Jack Thompson and passed by the Louisiana State Legislature in June, Louisiana HB1381 criminalized the sale of some video games to those under 18. Shortly thereafter, the Entertainment Software Association filed a lawsuit, which resulted in a temporary injunction against its enforcement.

The Louisiana law took a novel approach to regulating the sale of video games in the hope that it would pass constitutional muster. Rep. Roy Burrell (R) and Jack Thompson had research that purported to show a causative link between playing violent video games and real-world violence entered into the legislative record in an attempt to buttress the legislation's shaky credentials. In addition, the law adapted the Miller obscenity test to the realm of violent video games, prohibiting their sale to minors if they:

Appealed to the minor's morbid interest in violence" according to "contemporary community standards,"

Depicted violence inappropriate to minors according to "prevailing standards" in the adult community, and

Judge James Brady found the efforts unconvincing. In issuing a temporary injunction against the law, the judge wrote that "the evidence that was submitted to the legislature in connection with the bill that became the statute is sparse and could hardly be called in any sense reliable." Judge Brady also called the studies' connections between video game and real-world violence "tenuous and speculative."

Thompson blamed the Louisiana Attorney General's office for the ruling, telling Ars that its effort to defend the law was "at best incompetent and at worst compromised."

This has not been a good week for video game legislation. Just yesterday, an US Appeals Court upheld a lower court's ruling that a similar Illinois law was unconstitutional.

With video game legislation on a long losing streak, it's time for politicians to stop pandering to their constituents by continuing to introduce and pass legislation restricting the sale of some video games. The courts have spoken clearly and unanimously: video games are protected by the First Amendment and singling them out for regulation violates the Equal Protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.